Import Duties
p. 27 · Read in the full issue
Fiji’s Cost-Plus System of Import Duties
From a Special Correspondent FJI, for the past several years has had a system of calculat ing import duties that has brought much extra cash into the coffers of the Colony’s Treasury, and much heart-burning to im porters and consumers of goods.
Duty on all goods going into Fiji is calculated on the f.o.b. cost, plus the freight or postage as the case may be. Thus, if a resident imports goods to the value of £2 and the freight is 2/-, he has to pay duty on £2/2/-. .
If the parcel is posted, then Customs officials in Fiji add the face value of the postage stamps to the cost and he pays duty on the total.
This clumsy system has, of course, many anomalies, particu larly so as value is quite unrelated to weight, but it is a system where by the Government cannot lose.
One concession has been made, however, if goods are sent by air mail or air freight, the duty is cal culated as though ordinary surface methods of transportation had been used. For this, Fiji citizens appar ently have to thank Sir Henry Milne Scott.
The story is that Sir Henry had a bottle of medicine sent up from Australia. The cost of the medicine was about 3/- and the airmail post age about 13/-. He was charged duty on total amount—that is 16/-, or whatever it was. He fought this decision and, as a result, it was agreed that in such cases duty would be charged as though the article had been sent by surface mail.
Mr. C. F. Johnson, an overseer in charge of Nauru native labour, arrived in Brisbane on October 7 In the Triadic. He is on annual leave, and said that natives working for the British Phosphate Commis sion were living in £l,OOO bungalows for a rental of 6/- per week.
“Natives do not buy the bungalows, which remain the property of the Commission,” he said.
The engagement has been an nounced of Miss Heather Innes, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. G. A.
Allen Innes, of Sydney, formerly of Papua-New Guinea, to Mr, Peter Barnard, son of the late Capt. F. L.
Barnard and Mrs. G. A. Rowe Williamson, of Surrey, England. An engagement party was held at the Innes’ Vaucluse home on November 3.